


Moments Lost

by sillyboyblue



Category: Blade Runner (1982)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8455687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sillyboyblue/pseuds/sillyboyblue
Summary: "You don't remember anything, do you ?"





	

When Deckard lost his grip on the edge, he expected to fall to his death and meet his maker.

Yet Roy would not let it happen and caught him by the wrist while crying out : "Kinship !"

He proceeded to lift Rick on the roof and threw him unceremoniously on the ground, where Rick crawled away from him.

There was something in Roy's eyes - something more than simple exhaustion. An unspoken sadness that Deckard could almost feel.

Roy sat cross-legged in front of Deckard, and finally spoke his mind.

"You don't remember anything, do you ?"

Rick remained silent, wondering what he was supposed to remember. Roy went on :

"Why should you remember ?"

Not a word escaped Rick's mouth, what was there to say ?

"Why am I expecting you to remember ?"

Fear overcame Deckard. He knew Roy was about to kill him if he could not remember what he was supposed to. So he asked what could be his last question.

"What should I remember ?"

A sad smile appeared on Roy's face and Rick swore he could see tears glistening in the replicant's eyes. He extended his open hand and his fingers nearly brushed against Deckard's forehead.

"Everything."

Rick held his breath.

"What is everything ?"

"Oh, if I only knew where to begin..."

Whatever Roy was about to tell Rick, it could only be lies. A clever trick from a clever man. No, not a man. A replicant.

Yet in this moment there was something human about Roy.

"Everything about you. Everything about us."

What was there to know about them ? They had only just met a few minutes before. There was nothing between them.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Deckard grew impatient. If he had his blaster he would have killed Roy a long time ago. No, not killed. Retired. Roy was not human.  
But the illusion was perfect. He bled red like a human.

"If you told me what ?"

Roy's voice caught in his throat and Rick knew he was weeping. What an odd sight. What an odd feeling that he felt in this instant.

"That we were lovers."

How could it be ? At what point in their lives did they have the time to be something other than deadly enemies ?

"H-How ?"

Roy's hand caressed Deckard's cheek and the blade runner flinched away. Roy looked betrayed but not surprised. He had been expecting it.

"It can't be."

Roy almost believed him. Maybe he made it all up one day, when he was tired of feeling lonely. Maybe his dying brain mistook a dream for reality. But he could feel in his heart that it had happened, that it had been real.

"Yet it is the truth."

Lies, Deckard thought. It was all lies. It had to be. Because if it was real, he wouldn't know what to make of it. There was nothing to make of it because it was not true.

"We were not four when we left Mars and came here."

Rick recalled having a similar conversation with Bryant when he was assigned the case.

"Six replicants. Three males, three females. Two of them got fried running through an electric field near the Tyrell Corporation."

Roy shut Rick's mouth by pressing his index against his lips.

"Wrong."

Rick dared not push Roy's hand away so he remained frozen, waiting for his oponent's next move.

"They did not die."

Deckard feared that he was beginning to understand where Roy was going with his story.

"What happened to them ?"

Roy's eyes went out of focus for an instant and Rick was afraid he would die before finishing what he had to tell. But the replicant regained his consciousness soon enough.

"He told me they were reprogrammed."

"Who told you ?"

Deckard had spoken so fast Roy could barely finish his sentence.

"Tyrell."

Rick realized with horror that it made sense, that it all suddenly made sense and that he was beginning to believe.

"What are they called ?" he asked nervously, half sure that he already knew the answer.

Roy smiled.

"Rick and Rachael."

Everything around Rick crumbled down, or at least it felt like it. His whole world, everything he knew - Roy had just reduced them to broken pieces of a fake past.

"Is it your name ?"

No, a voice cried in Deckard's head. Rick knew what his name was, but it could not be the same Rick.

"Is it you, Rick Deckard ?"

"Yes."

The truth behind Roy's words was unbearable. Everything Rick ever believed in, everything he fought for came crashing down when he heard his own name.

"I am Rick Deckard."

An uncomfortable silence settled between the two replicants. It was heavy, and so was Deckard's heart.

When he spoke again, something in his voice had changed.

"I get the shakes..." he muttered while looking at his hands and his two dislocated fingers. "I get them bad..."

It was true. His hands were shaking badly and Roy had to stop himself from steadying them.

"Rachael got them bad too... She knew she was not in the business... She told me... She was the business..."

Rick's eyes betrayed his emotions. Shock, confusion, fear, anger, disgust, sadness...

"And so am I."

... Realization.

"They could erase the memories, but not the instincts."

Roy felt the pain in his chest grow stronger. Was his heart failing him or was it empathy for Deckard ?

Empathy. Tyrell loved this word. He said replicants were incapable of it. He lied.

But the four-year lifespan was very real and Roy was reaching its end.

"How old am I ?"

Rick asked him softly, yet he was afraid of being too old, if being four years old could be considered as old. No matter what the answer would be, Deckard knew he would feel old.

"Five months."

The relief that Deckard expected to feel never came. Five months wasn't much, but then again so was four years.

"How long do I live ?"

He remembered what Tyrell had told him about Rachael having no termination date. What if it was the case for him as well ?

"Four years..."

Roy paused for a moment, long enough for Rick to take in this new information. He then added with a chuckle that sounded wrong :

"...more than me."

"What about Rachael ?" Deckard asked fearfully although there was nothing to worry about.

Tyrell had told him she was special.

"Four years as well."

Rick clenched his fists and cried out in pain when he moved his injured fingers. Perhaps it was from anger too. He was too tired to know or care.

"Tyrell lied to me..."

Roy closed his eyes a little too long and Rick feared he would never open them again. But he did.

"It's in his nature."

He paused.

"I wonder if the original was the same when it comes to lying."

Rick thought Roy was talking nonsense once again, but after everything he had told him, he knew it had to make sense somehow.

"What do you mean ?"

Roy was out of breath.

"The Tyrell we met was a replicant."

Rick cracked a smile and laughed humorlessly.

"You've got to be joking."

It comforted Rick to believe that it was all a bad joke, that he was not a replicant.

Roy did not leave him this chance.

"The real Tyrell had an unknown disease. They put him in a hibernation unit so that they could wake him up when they discovered a cure."

Deckard's smile faltered.

"How can you know that ?"

Roy knew so much more about everything than Rick did. It seemed that he knew more about the blade runner than the blade runner himself.

"Sebastian. He took me to the real Tyrell."

Rick snapped.

"We only found two bodies."

Roy's breathing was getting more and more labored and each breath felt like a challenge.

"When I asked Sebastian to wake him up, he told me he couldn't. When I asked him why, he told me that the real Tyrell had died during a power outage."

"So you killed him."

Deckard understood now that he nearly had all the pieces of the puzzle displayed in front of him. Nearly all of them.

"How long do you have ?"

Rick was not blind. He had seen the way Roy was fighting to keep his eyes open, how uneven his breathing was, how his hands were cramping up and how the bleeding from the wound on his head would not stop.

"No more than an hour now."

An hour and he would be gone forever. An hour was not enough, there were so many things that Rick needed to know...

"Tell me about us."

It took Roy a few seconds to answer. His voice was growing weaker, nearly muffled by the sound of the rain.

Rick crawled closer to Roy to make sure he would not miss any detail of their story.

"I saved your life."

Rick wondered how many times Roy had saved his life in five months and under what circumstances.

"We fell into an ambush. I pushed you out of the way of a grenade."

Why would Roy risk his life for a man he did not even know back then ? What pushed him to put others before himself ?

"Were you injured ?"

Rick thought he knew why Roy acted the way he did on that day.

"I was unconscious for a few hours. When I woke up, I was back at the camp and you were by my side."

Empathy. It was empathy.

"You told me..."

Roy's voice cracked and Rick took his hand, careful not to touch the nail that pierced through his palm. His skin was cold.

"I don't remember. I can't recall what you told me. My memories - I'm losing them."

Rick squeezed Roy's fingers tightly in an attempt to warm the dying flesh.

"Tell me what's coming to your mind when you think about us."

Rick nearly urged Roy to tell him more about the past they shared.

"Your face being the first thing I see when I open my eyes...

Your body bathed in the sunlight on Mars...

Stealing a shuttle and kisses...

Our bodies bathed in the moonlight on Earth...

Opening my eyes to see you again..."

Roy's hand caressed Rick's cheek. He did not flinch away.

Roy looked healthier than he had ever been, as much as possible while being soaked with rain and covered in blood. This sudden increase in energy gave Rick hope. There was a smile on Roy's face.  
But his voice grew distant. Cold.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion....  
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate...

All those moments... will be lost in time... like... tears... in... rain...

Time... to die."

Rick cupped Roy's face in his hands and kissed him.

He kissed him like there was no tomorrow. He kissed him as if it was the last time. He kissed him as if his life depended on it.

Roy went limp and Rick held him in his arms as he wept. He hoped for Roy to wake up as if he had fallen asleep. He hoped it was all a bad joke.

He had been right and wrong.

Roy did not have an hour to live. He had the entire night to die.

He was breathing and his eyes were open but there was no life in them.

Roy let go of the dove as he let go of his life.

Rick watched him die all night. He wished he could have saved his life like Roy saved his. But there was no going back. Roy wouldn't quit.

Not once did he whimper. After all it was just another war for the soldier that he was. His last war. He fought it all the way. He took all the time he had, every second of it, he clung to life until the very end.

Then he was dead.

**Author's Note:**

> I did not really lose my inspiration for this one, I just feel like it's missing something to be complete. It start kind of abruptly in my opinion.
> 
> But then again being the author my opinion may be biased.
> 
> I don't feel like posting this one out of Inspiration Lost for the moment. Maybe someday I will, who knows.
> 
>  
> 
> Update : Now I have.


End file.
